ST PIRAN, or St Perran, has sometimes gained the credit of
discovering tin in Cornwall; yet Usher places the date of his birth about
the year 352; and the merchants of Tyre are said to have traded with
Cornwall for tin as early as the days of King Solomon.

There are three places in Cornwall to which the name of
Perran is given ;--

Perran-Aworthall--i. e., Perran on the noted
River.

Perran-Uthno--i.e., Perran the Little.

Perran-Zabuloe--i.e., Perran in the Sands.

This sufficiently proves that the saint, or some one bearing
that name, was eminently popular amongst the people; and in St Perran we
have an example--of which several instances are given--of the manner in
which a very ancient event is shifted forward, as it were, for the purpose
of investing some popular hero with additional reasons for securing the
devotion of the people, and of drawing them to his shrine. [a]

Picnous, or Piecras, is another name which has been floating
by tradition, down the stream of time, in connection with the discovery of
tin; and in the eastern portion of Cornwall, Picrous-day, the second
Thursday before Christmas-day, is kept as the tinners' holiday.

The popular story of the discovery of tin is, however,
given with all its anachronisms.

[a] See Perran-Zabuloe, with an Account
of the Past and Present State of the Oratory of St Picas in the Sands, and
Remarks on its Antiquity. By the Rev. Wm. Haslam BA., and by the Rev. Collins
Trelawney.

St Kieran, the favourite Celtic saint,
reached Scotland from Ireland, the precursor of St Columba (563 AD.). "The
cave of St Kieran is still shown in Kintyre, where the

first Christian teacher of the Western
Highlands is believed to have made his abode."--Wilson's Prehistoric
Annals. '

There is a curious resemblance between
the deeds and the names of those two saints.